David J. Kramer, president of Freedom House, served as deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs from 2005 to 2008 and as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor from 2008 to 2009.

Vladimir Putin possesses a paradoxical, if not dangerous, combination of arrogance and self-assuredness added to paranoia, insecurity and hyper-sensitivity. His paranoia increased—and with it his assault against civil society in Russia—following the “Color Revolutions” in Georgia and Ukraine in 2003-2004, which scared him into thinking that Russia was next on the list. His insecurities were fed by developments in the Arab world in 2011, when he watched like-minded leaders in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya fall from power as a result of popular movements. Fast forward to November 2013, when Ukrainians turned out in the streets again, eventually forcing out President Viktor Yanukovych, and Putin’s suspiciousness again intensified. To prevent a genuine popular, democratic movement from taking root in Ukraine, he invaded Crimea, fabricating the justification that he was protecting the rights of fellow Russians. He undoubtedly hopes that a Ukraine politically and ethnically divided, further hobbled with a disputed territory, will be too damaged for the West to maintain interest.

Reflecting his zero-sum thinking, Putin views efforts by Ukraine, Georgia, Moldova and other neighbors to Westernize and democratize as a threat to Russia’s “zone of special interests” and to the political model he has created in Russia, leading him to support authoritarian regimes, whether in Kyiv under Yanukovych or Damascus under Bashar al-Assad. On one hand, Putin apparently believes he can get away with an invasion of Ukraine and annexation of Crimea; on the other, he has Russian forces remove any insignia identifying them as Russian, so that he can avoid accusations that he has violated Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Even though there was no real threat to Russians in Ukraine, Putin cited the need to come to their aid; the irony is that Putin shows scant interest in the welfare of Russians living inside Russia itself. After major protests against him in December 2011 and spring 2012 that again fed his insecurity about a popular movement unfolding inside Russia, Putin launched the harshest crackdown against human rights since the breakup of the Soviet Union. At home and abroad, Putin tries to strike the pose of a confident, assertive leader. In reality, his actions reflect a deeply worried authoritarian willing to resort to any means necessary to stay in power.

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A Ruthless Realist

Eugene Rumer, director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, was national intelligence officer for Russia and Eurasia at the U.S. National Intelligence Council from 2010 to 2014.

The Ukraine crisis is only the latest episode that sheds light on the hard, unsentimental view of the world underlying Vladimir Putin’s foreign policy: might is right, the weak get crushed. That was Russia’s fate in the 1990s, when the West pushed deep into Russia’s former empire, waged wars in the Balkans and interfered in Russian domestic affairs. Then Russia recovered, pushed back and restored balance to its relations with the West. The Georgia war was a signal to the West to keep out of Russia’s sphere of influence, and to its neighbors to remember that Russia again had the means and the will to patrol its neighborhood.

Putin’s view of Ukraine is apparently similar to Zbigniew Brzezinski’s argument that, without Ukraine, Russia cannot be an empire. What Brzezinski wants to prevent, Putin seems determined to achieve. He is prepared to pay the price of keeping Ukraine in Russia’s orbit. Putin the realist almost certainly is aware of the toll his actions have taken on Ukrainian attitudes toward him and Russia. But tethering Ukraine to Russia is more important than Ukrainian public opinion. Putin has probably calculated that the West’s military option is off the table, that its sanctions will be more bark than bite, and that after a cooling-off period there will be a new “reset.” He is poised to annex Crimea, and, with that new reality in hand, he will look for an opening in Kyiv. After all, much of the new team there looks like the old team, and Putin probably thinks he can find a common language with them just fine. How successful will he be?